You raise important questions that I don't have the answer to. There are incidents in history where certain aspects are common knowledge. Such as US supporting Iraq (is it Donald Rumsfeld smiling as he shakes Saddam's hand) in a war with Iran. And US supporting the beginnings of Al Queda in their war with the USSR.

I was not aware that dicatators in Indonesia and S. Korea committed atrocities against their own people under the watchful eye of the US govt and nothing was done because the dictator was considered such an important cog in the fight against communism.

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>. That of course was heavily publicized in the US, where the S. Korean episode was kept quiet here.
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>If somethig like this is possible how can anybody have the slightest pretese that we have a free press?
>Personally I have no doubt that the main stream media is controlled. What trully amazes me is that it can be done so well at a global scale. It is easy to understand how they do in an autocracy, but how do they do it (and who are "they"?) in democracies?